Finally, there’s help at hand. Your mobile operator will be held accountable every time you receive an unwanted call from a telemarketer. Sector regulator TRAI on Monday notified that service providers will be subjected to a fine of Rs 5,000 for the first unsolicited commercial call made to a Do-Not-Call-registered subscriber, and Rs 20,000 for every subsequent call. All that the subscriber has to do is to inform his service provider within 15 days of the call.

Justifying the move to impose stiff penalties on telecom operators over their failure to rein in unsolicited telemarketing calls, the regulator said, “There have been a number of consumer complaints to the authority about telemarketing calls.

Financial sanctions, as an effective deterrent to non-compliance of the regulations, has become a necessity. The objective (of these penalties) is to increase the effectiveness of the regulations by providing some financial sanctions to non-compliant telecom service providers and reduce the nuisance and inconvenience caused to mobile phone subscribers.’’

Sources said that mobile phone companies are likely to challenge the TRAI directive. While no operator wanted to comment officially, sources said the operators are likely to point out that most of the unsolicited calls were being made by the 15,000 plus unregistered telemarketers and that they had no control over them.TRAI also directed that telemarketers be fined Rs 500 for the first unsolicited commercial communication they make to a DNC-registered subscriber and added that the fine amount would be increased to Rs 1,000 for every subsequent call.

The Do-Not-Call service was introduced last year by the TRAI for those mobile subscribers who did not want telemarketers to disturb them with calls on house loans, credit cards, insurance and other services. So far, it has been a non-starter as even DNC-registered subscribers continue to be troubled by telemarketers.

The regulator also said that it was forced to impose steep penalties as the issue of increasing telemarketing calls had caught the attention of Parliament, the Supreme Court of India, the Court of Delhi, the Reserve Bank of India and the State Commission (Consumer) of Delhi.

However, it must also be pointed out that only a small section of India’s 250 million mobile subscribers has opted to sign up for Do-Not-Call registry. So far, only 8.3 million phone users have registered for the service. - a far cry from the initial prediction of 50-00 million cellular users likely to sign up immediately to get relief from pesky telemarketers.

Beyond the metros, there are hardly any takers for the DNC. Even in the metros, which have a combined cellular base of over 50 million, only a small percent of subscribers have signed up.

According to TRAI data, about 13,600 telemarketers have got themselves registered with the DoT. The NDNC is being accessed daily by around 600 tele-marketers for scrubbing their calling list. Out of approximately 1,522 million numbers uploaded by the telemarketers for scrubbing, 1,411 million numbers were cleared by NDNC for calling, TRAI added.

NEW DELHI: A day after telecom regulator TRAI directed service providers to pay fines up to Rs 20,000 for allowing unsolicited commercial calls from telemarketers, telcos on Tuesday hit back and said that the authority didn’t have powers to impose financial penalties on them.

As reported by ET on Tuesday, it is also learnt that telcos are set to challenge TRAI’s regulations in court. When contacted, TRAI chairman Nripendra Misra said, “There’s no question of any review of this regulation.’’ TRAI sources also added that mobile operators were welcome to challenge the decision.

The do-not-call service was introduced last year by the TRAI for mobile subscribers who did not wish to be disturbed by telemarketers for house loans, credit cards, insurance and other services. So far, it has been a non-starter as even DNC-registered subscribers continue to be troubled by telemarketers, which forced TRAI to impose steep penalties.

Telcos have pointed out that they cannot be held responsible if unregistered telemarketers continued to defy laws and make calls to subscribers who were registered with the Do-Not-Call registry.

“The service providers merely provide the ‘pipes’ for the carriage of the calls and cannot be held responsible for such pesky, nuisance calls made by marketing agencies. The Authority is aware that there is no technological facility available which can help the service provider to discern whether the call is from a telemarketer

There is no way in which the service provider can ensure that the telemarketer has scrubbed the calling list in an appropriate manner before making the telemarketing call,” Cellular Operators Association of India and the Association of Unified Service Providers of India said in a joint communication to TRAI. COAI represent operators on the GSM platform while AUSPI is the industry body of the CDMA-based operators.

“Poor compliance by telemarketers and their concerned institutions needs to be urgently addressed to protect consumers. Service providers should not be demotivated by slapping penalties for an action for which they are not responsible.

We urge that suitable actions be taken by the Authority at the real source of the problem - the errant telemarketers and their customer institutions which will effectively protect customers and end-users,” said the cellular industry bodies communication said.

Service providers also said that they have made efforts to put in place systems which would help TRAI’s regulation to become effective. “We have had several meetings and discussions with the Authority, brought out public awareness advertisements and left no stone unturned to protect the privacy of our customers,” the communication added.

NEW DELHI: Telecom watchdog TRAI on Wednesday said it is ready for a legal battle if the telecom operators move the court challenging its decision to impose penalties on service providers for unsolicited calls to the subscribers.

"There is no question of rolling back the decision. If the operators move court challenging the move, we are ready to fight them," a TRAI official said here on the sidelines of Convergence India, an ICT exhibition.

The telecom regulator had on Monday said for the first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 5,000, which could go up to Rs 20,000 for each subsequent call.

The telecom operators associations yesterday strongly opposed the decision, which they said was "unfair" and would potentially discourage the service providers.

GSM lobby group COAI and CDMA operators group AUSPI said in a joint statement that TRAI does not have the powers to penalise operators.

"The service providers merely provide the pipes for the carriage of the calls and cannot be held responsible for such pesky, nuisance calls made by the marketing agencies," the statement had said.

TRAI is well aware that there is no technological facility available which can help the service provider to discern whether the call is from a telemarketer or is an unsolicited commercial communication, it added.

Moreover, there is no way in which the service provider can ensure that the telemarketer has scrubbed the calling list in an appropriate manner before making the call.

The entire industry is completely discouraged by this regulation since we have been going out of our way and making all possible efforts to put in a system so as to enable the Authority's (TRAI's) UCC regulation to be effective," it had said yesterday.

TRAI, on its part, had said, "The objective is to increase the effectiveness of compliance of these regulations by providing financial disincentive to non-compliant Telecom Service Providers and thereby reducing the nuisance and inconvenience to the subscribers from the unsolicited tele-marketing calls/ messages."